


Patterns of Play

by Marzi



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Kadis-kot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 09:58:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6951781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marzi/pseuds/Marzi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having to think outside the box wasn't something Kathryn thought she needed to be taught after all that she had been through. Apparently she was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patterns of Play

**Author's Note:**

  * For [parcequelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/parcequelle/gifts).



> I'm a total angst monster, so writing for someone who had zero interest in that threw me for a loop. I loved the idea of Deanna and Jadzia hanging out, but in the end, I had to go with a scenario that would keep me from doing anything sad. Hence, Naomi Wildman.

 

Naomi called out her move and started by putting a green piece down at the bottom of the game grid. Kathryn took a long moment to study the decision, fingers brushing against her chin and eyebrows arched. Her attentive 'hm' was what broke Naomi's overly serious face into a grin. She even stretched her hand out as if she was going to make a play, and then took it back.

 

The little girl couldn't contain herself much longer. “You said you were going to play kadis-kot, not watch!”

 

“I suppose you're right.” She shifted an orange colored token next to Naomi's, only after hovering her hand over the piece for a good few seconds longer than necessary. No need to concede entirely.

 

While she enjoyed the show of deliberation, Naomi bounced with a young child's impatience and moved her next token, right above the first, without much outward appearance of thought. Kathryn wasn't sure how many rounds of kadis-kot she could effectively play in a row, but at the rate the girl was going, she would find out soon enough. Samantha had told her captain that Naomi was bouncing from one thing to the next all the time, so perhaps she would grow bored once this session was done.

 

Kathryn didn't want the game to end, but she also didn't want to get dragged into a scenario where her inner competitiveness might be tempted to come out near a child. A Janeway on the path to victory could leave a bit of a mess in their wake, as her mother had often attested to in Kathryn's youth. The things she and her sister used to get riled up over.... Had kadis-kot been briefly banned with all the sundry board games?

 

She chose a horizontal path for her next token, rather than follow Naomi's vertical. Naomi bounced in her seat before calling out her next move and shifting another green piece. As far as kadis-kot strategies went, Kathryn had never come across it before. She studied the board again, this time without the pretext of putting on a show. The young Wildman definitely knew how to play, it was one of her favorite games, so she knew it wasn't ignorance of the rules that was causing this. Was her youngest crewman messing with her? Was there an elaborate strategy in place to get one over on her captain?

 

She had to be over thinking things.

 

Kathryn placed another orange piece, this time on the other side of the green one Naomi first played. It would keep her token out of play if there was some sort of nefarious scheme going on. Not that she needed to win, or was planning on winning, but if she was going to lose she was determined to know how it was happening.

 

Naomi continued to build her little green line of pieces. Kathryn stayed out of her way, trying to wait out whatever the girl was planning by lining the bottom of the board with orange pieces. By now the moves they were employing weren't strictly legal by the game's rules, but since Naomi wasn't complaining, Kathryn decided against bringing it up. Perhaps Tom had been wrangled into a few games during one of Naomi's visits to sickbay and decided to augment the rules a little. Surely she would have heard about it from the Doctor before now, if that had been the case. He would have taken the opportunity to complain about Tom, if not his abuse of the game.

 

She was about to start placing red tokens under her orange line, when she saw Naomi frown. The play she was about to make was clearly outside of the new rules they were playing with. Whatever was happening on their game board, she was failing to see it, though every move before now had apparently been fine.

 

Aside from the unplayed pieces scattered across the board, Naomi had built a green line leading up from the bottom, with a tiny offshoot on one side at the middle, angled down. Kathryn's unwavering orange line held the bottom. She twirled the red piece between her fingers, trying to suss out why under the orange was the incorrect place.

 

She stared at the green line. Naomi stared at her, suddenly as still and as patient as a saint.

 

Children, Kathryn decided, were the greatest mystery of the universe.

 

She stared at the green line, this time ignoring everything else on the board. She put the red piece on top of the green Naomi had built, and her choice was met with an approving smile. Having to think outside the box, or in this case hexagon, wasn't something Kathryn thought she needed to be taught after all that she had been through. Apparently she was wrong.

 

She shook her head, smile pulling at her lips. “I thought you said we were going to play kadis-kot.”

 

Naomi just grinned, placing another red token next to Kathryn's. “You said you were going to play kadis-kot. I said I wanted to play.”

 

“Oh, I see. My mistake was assuming the two were related.” The two of them picked up the pace, abandoning calling out the grid spaces in favor of completing a red circle on top of the stem Naomi had drawn.

 

“They were.”

 

“Just not in the way I was thinking, then.” The wry amusement in her voice went unnoticed or ignored by the young girl across from her. She had had one pulled over on her, just not about what she expected.

 

“Isn't this more fun anyway?”

 

The little red flower they made on the kadis-kot board, supported by its stem with its awkward little leaf, sprouting from the orange earth, certainly did have an appeal to it that a completed kadis-kot game board did not. Victory had no foothold next to spontaneous art.

 

“You know,” she leaned back in her chair to get a better view. “I think you're right.”

 

Kathryn started the next round, after they had taken a holo of the flower to show Naomi's mother later, and in no time at all they had built a sun, bursting out from the center of the board from orange, to red, to green.

 

 


End file.
